From Lions to Ants – Big Game Tracker turns to the tiny
Today the Governement sent in agents to launch a recon mission in my end of the street/creek and my yard. Their mission was to seek (and if necessary, destroy) a foreign invader – The Evil Electric Ant.
In January, an infestation of these native South American Ants was discovered a few hundred metres away in the resort grounds across the bush from my house. They are not a friendly insect to stumble upon. These ants inject painful venom when they sting, they specifically attack the eyeballs of other animals, including pets, and can blind them. They attack birds and nestlings and farm scale insects. Bad for crops. All round nasty guys.
All week the DPI guys and girls have been laying baits to see if any had spread to our streeet and homes. Today was my turn.
That’s Steve checking bait traps on the banks of Deadman’s Gully. You can see the little pink ribbons where he laid traps inside my front fence.
About 2 dozen baits were laid around my yard, including the herb pots. The Electric ants are gourmets. They will only go for the expensive Don Sausage.
Steve checking the baits after an hour. He was such a knowledgable guy. We yakked for ages about the wonderful biodiversity of this area. He checked out a few insect species for me, as well as my tadpole ponds, which he’s hopeful are NOT canetoads.
This man has spent many years researching wild lion prides in South Africa. He says it’s was an amazing, sometimes heartbreaking, experience. To be checking for ants is quite a bit less stressful than facing a poacher with a semi-automatic machine gun!
We got the all clear – no baddies on our block.
Here is some info from their site:
The electric ant is golden brown in colour and 1 – 1.5mm in length
Overview
| Scientific name | Wasmannia auropunctata |
|---|
- Are tiny, about 1.5mm long
- Are light to golden brown in colour all over
- Are usually slow moving
- Are social – they like to be with each other, often in heaps
- Do not have nests – electric ants establish colonies anywhere and have been found under stones, in garden waste, leaf mould, soil, trees, swimming pools and water courses, and may be in wall cavities, clothing, bedding or camping gear
- Can be found in wet or dry conditions
- Like water – they may ´jump´ into swimming pools and form a ´raft´
Origin
For more info from their site click here.
I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine’s Day on Saturday. We enjoyed a sumptuous brekkie by a lake near Trinity Beach. The iced cranberry juice was delicious.
There was however, a plague of toadlets to navigate. They were everywhere. Even the restaurant owner was perplexed by their sheer numbers. Thousands and thousands of them underfoot.
This photo was AFTER they had cleared the path. They were tiny, about the size of your little finger nail. Jeff said that was nothing, some of his greens were black with them. Some didn’t get out of the way of cars or feet in time.
Slow toadlet on the left.
Another species out in huge numbers were the Rainbow Bee Eaters, strung out like pearls on a necklace There must have been a couple of hundred of them at Trinity. Repeat the photo below across 5 lengths of telegraph line and you can imagine what they looked and sounded like.
It was like a Blue Light Disco of the air.
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The ants are distinctive…..hope they are under control. The juice looks delicious, not so negotiating the baby toads.
You do have wonderful bio-diversity in your back yard. Glad to hear of your sumptuous breakfast and the food stocks not being as critical. My laid back brother at Karumba told me he sold all his stocks of chocolate!!!!
It`s like an invasion of creatures great and small in your neck of the woods….
I laughed about the slow cane toad…He won`t do that again in a hurry….lol
Glad to see that the water has subsided…Are the shelves getting stocked again????…
Great post Cindy…
Hi Cindy,
Although we live in Queensland, I’ve never heard of these horrible ants. Are they the same as fire ants? Whatever they are, they must be eradicated. let’s hope the authorities can do that.
The birds did a good job….
Hope you havent run out of chocolate????
Those birds are amazing and great pics again. I’ve seen toadlets like that, hundreds come in waves across the path when I walk down near the little dam in our area. I don’t care about treading on the slow ones. They are all awfull creatures. Those ants sound like our Fire Ants, I wonder if they are the same (as BB asked). The drink makes me think you have got supplies coming through again. Hope so.
Electric ants sound awful, as if you don’t have enough to contend with – toadlets and their even worse grown ups! The rainbow bee eaters are cool though.
Hi Everyone,
These Electric Ants aren’t the same as the Fire Ants, although because of their painful sting they are lumped together. They only arrived in Cairns in 2006, and have so far been contained to Smithfield and Kewarra Beach (both Northern Beaches suburbs). They have big road signs posted about to be wary of moving pot plants between suburbs, as that is how they get about.
Still a bit sad at the shops today. The big bulky items that are non-essentials are running low or are out altogether – tissues, paper towels, biscuits (although you’d think they WERE essential) etc. Down to the last 200gms of bacon as well. And very limited eggs. Still, we’re still a lot better off than some -poor Karumban folk will be without water soon (hope your brother is not regretting selling off his choccies Elizabeth!)
Hope you are are all keeping safe and happy wherevere you are!
You’re an artist with a clean blog design. the pictures are awesome!